Selena de Carvalho is an activist posting as an artist. Her practice responds to notions of personal ecology and human interaction with the environment. Throughout this practice she seeks out materials and environments that have weathered various forms of frontline disturbance, positioning in the role of both witness and interpreter. These sites and places are geographically disparate, but are connected via capitalist industrial threads, forms of convergent evolutions, migration paths or political narratives. This practice responds to and presents a provocation to tune in, to remember that we are part of an interconnected interdependent web of complexity. In various modes the works seek to amplify the voices of more-than-human entities. Acts and gestures of solidarity re-frame culturally engendered hierarchies of importance, acknowledging the diverse world making abilities of more-than-human diversity of which we are all enmeshed. This is her long term and current creative focus and operates as a framework for deeper inquiry, braiding numerous mediums including participatory installation, performance, sculpture, time based media, urban hacking, print media and writing.
What does Hatched mean to you?’
The opportunity to exhibit in Hatched was a unique thrill and privilege. At the time I was 35 with two children and a single parent. The invitation and support to share ecological haunts ii in this context was meaningful, in equal parts because the work addresses changing climate and fragility within ecosystems – which I believe to be pressing and of great importance – and because it was exciting and an honour leave the island, meet with other artists, make friends and experience new works of fellows within the broader creative community.
Hatched was a turning point for me, it was so positive and encouraging, to receive the Harold Schenberg Art Fellowship. Not only the finances, which obviously were fantastic, the award also gifted a confidence boost. The work, ecological haunts ii was conceptually and emotionally challenging to create, it being received in this way was vindicating, confirming I suppose, that the work was connecting to and affecting people. Rippling out into the world.
Hatched was a game changer, it opened up experiences previously beyond the scope of my imaginings and financial circumstances. Receiving the fellowship enabled me to invest in equipment and time. I made lots of new creative work on the back of this support. I also had a residency in Paris at the Cite a few months following the award. At the end of this time my children joined me and we hired a car and went south, sneaking into abandoned castles, sleeping in the long grass next to rivers, visiting nuclear reactors and hiking in the Pyrenees, thinking with the plants that are crawling up mountains as the climate shifts…we made good memories on that journey together, and it would not have been possible without the fellowship. I’m so thankful for the enabling support.
